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Talk:The Snow Queen/@comment-74.99.65.62-20170424180720/@comment-74.99.65.62-20170728144845
I adore this character, ELSA! Although she's the main deuteragonist of Disney’s Frozen (2013), she's a fascinating character. Elsa's interesting in a lot of ways because she's very complex. In The Snow Queen, the fairy tale that inspired Frozen, the queen was the antagonist. When Disney started to develop this film, Elsa was intended to be a villain. They went in a different direction with her when they decided to make Elsa an extremely, complicated, sympathetic, tragic, misunderstood anti heroine. I’m so glad they did. She's still the main source of conflict, since she accidentally sets off the eternal winter, but you certainly can’t call her evil. It’s way more interesting when things aren’t so black and white. This change in the concept for the story shifted the struggle from good vs. evil to love vs. fear. That’s really compelling. The main criticism I’ve heard for Elsa is that this movie makes it seem like it's bad to be introverted/withdrawn/soft-spoken/etc. It's a real issue that our society tends to shame introverts and try to “fix” them, and I care a lot about that issue because I am such an introvert but I don’t think this movie's guilty of that. It shows that shutting people out, as shown in “Do You Want To Build A Snowman”, hurts them. It shows that repressing who you are, like Elsa hiding her powers, hurts yourself. It never vilifies being naturally reserved. Elsa’s introversion makes her beautifully dignified. Her quiet nature was inherent to her personality. Those qualities are seen when she was a small child, in her ice castle, and at the end of the movie, all times when she was being completely her uninhibited self. It’s trying to hide/change who she is that has a negative effect. You can understand why she felt the need to hide herself. When she was very young, she was told that her powers were dangerous. Her magic had always been something fun, but now she learns that she could seriously hurt people with them without meaning too. She's also told that if people find out about her powers they will try to hurt her. This is all terrifying to a young child. She's instructed to conceal her powers and not even let herself feel the magic inside of her. It's fear and obedience to those commands that drive everything she does. We, as the audience, can see that shutting herself away and suppressing her powers is not the best course of action to take, but to Elsa it seems like the only option. She locks herself away from the outside world, doesn’t leave her home ever, barely has contact with anybody, and won’t even allow her parents to touch her. This is all to protect others. Besides the direct emotional pain this all would cause her, Elsa sacrifices her reputation for the sake of keeping her loved ones safe. People probably see her as cold (ha) and heartless, but everything she does is done out of her love for others. She can’t explain her actions, so she risks losing their love by shutting these people out. She's especially wholly devoted to protecting others over her own interests. The thing that is so beautiful about the song “Let It Go” is that this is the first time Elsa is by herself and doesn’t have to worry about hurting other people. She allows herself to let go of the fear and stop suppressing who she is. Elsa lets herself show her true colors and she's remarkable. She’s a powerful queen! She’s an artist! She’s brilliant, daring, poised, gorgeous, strong , elegant, and a million other wonderful things. Most of all she is confident. Elsa has found her freedom and has come to a point where she accepts herself. She abandons all her inhibitions. She's releasing her potential instead of shrinking away. She's wholly and unapologetically Elsa. It’s a perfect message to the children watching to be themselves and to make the most of who they are. She’s an exceptional role model. Elsa's the Disney character I never realized I was waiting for all my life.